 Welcome to the NTN Nightly, I'm Nisha Charles. This edition stops stories. The Government of St. Lucia encourages increased levels of competitiveness with the development of a competitive agenda. Media practitioners are now better prepared to report on disaster management. Preparations are underway for International Francophonie Day. All that, plus the latest in youth development, sports, and the NTN Nouvelle Arquéon. The Government of St. Lucia via the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is seeking to encourage increased levels of competitiveness within St. Lucia via the development of a competitiveness agenda. From March 4th to the 8th, the consultant hired to develop the competitiveness agenda solicited input from key stakeholders on the various pillars of competitiveness which drive economic growth. We have more from Glenn Simon. The National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, NCPC, via funding from Compete Caribbean, commence work on the National Competitiveness Agenda for St. Lucia. The National Competitiveness Agenda once completed will provide the NCPC with the framework to measure how well St. Lucia is performing as it relates to the various actions, policies, and initiatives undertaken to improve the island's competitiveness. Fiona Hengston is the Director of the NCPC. When you speak of competitiveness, it is important to benchmark yourself. So the World Economic Forum has established 12 pillars of competitiveness by which countries are to measure themselves in terms of how well they are doing in relation to competitiveness. Hengston noted that the 12 pillars of competitiveness are broken down into four main categories, first of which is the creation of the enabling environment. The second category, the human capital, where you look at the skills of the population as well as the health of the population, markets in terms of trade, how are you doing in that area, and the innovation ecosystem, looking at the ease of doing business and environment as well as the innovation capability. Product Development Consultant with Compete Caribbean, Dr. Kyren Smith, is part of a two-man team interfacing with various stakeholders on island, soliciting their input for the development of Saint Lucia's competitiveness agenda. The competitiveness agenda for Saint Lucia is expected to really to help bring together a lot of the work, a lot of studies and analysis that have gone before in terms of identifying Saint Lucia's particular economic strengths, particular vision and direction which it wants to go, and really bring those together to help the coordination of the action, the implementation of the recommendations that have been brought forward. He noted that Compete Caribbean operates on the perspective that in order to have a strong and resilient Caribbean, you need a strong and resilient private sector. Carlos Diaz is the director of entrepreneurial competitiveness with Infidae, the consultants hired by Compete Caribbean to develop the competitiveness agenda for Saint Lucia. Infidae is a private international consultancy firm based in Spain, specializing in economic development policies and innovation strategies for national and regional governments around the world. In this week we will have a lot of interviews and round tables with representatives of the pillars of the competitiveness of the country. And the focus of these meetings is to gather information about the competitiveness and productivity situation of the country. The NCPC director noted that the formulation of the competitiveness agenda for Saint Lucia will involve multiple consultations with the private sector, civil society organizations, the youth among other important stakeholders. For the National Competitiveness and Productivity Unit, Glenn Simon reporting. Media practitioners are now better prepared to report on disaster preparedness and mitigation following a training workshop this past weekend. The workshop was put on by the Caribbean Disaster Management Agency, CEDEMA and NEMO. Janelle Norville reports. The National Emergency Management Organization, NEMO, in collaboration with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, CEDEMA recently held a disaster risk management training workshop for media practitioners. Forecasters of the Met Services were also on hand to provide crucial insight into the meaning of key Met terms allowing media practitioners a better understanding of information divulged by the entity. The workshop, according to NEMO's program development officer Andrew George, was get towards increasing the media fraternity's capacity to effectively report on disasters and related events. And once the media person understand what they are reading and what they are saying, it helps in them translating the message and it helps when the message goes to the public because the media rule is to serve as a vehicle to ensure that the message that is coming from the National Emergency Operations Centre gets to the public in time and to make sure that persons act upon that message to change behaviour and to ensure that we develop in San Jose the culture of safety where persons believe in safety first and ensuring that they understand and they heed the warnings coming from the Met Office and the National Emergency Office. The program development officer also highlighted the importance of disseminating correct information from credible sources. George noted that with the advent of social media the circulation of false information has been on the rise. He urged media practitioners however to ensure that the information being broadcast is from a trustworthy source. The credible source of information is the National Emergency Operations Centre. So if there is an emergency that they want credible information they have to seek it from the National Emergency Management Centre and that is coordinated through the Government Information Service so that we understand that we all understand the same things and that information coming from NEMO goes through the GIS to the general public and to the other media houses so that it's not about just picking up a story off the line and going online and getting a story and running with it but double checking making sure that the source is credible and that what the information has given to the public is credible. We can't stop social media from disseminating fake news and fake information but we think it's the responsibility of the media houses to always ensure that the news they give out there is credible and comes from a credible source. The program development officer indicated that the workshop enabled the formation of new relationships and the strengthening of existing ones as NEMO continues to strive to fulfill its mandate. For the Government Information Service, I am Janelle Norville. Saint Lucia is gearing up to celebrate International Francophonie Day. We have more from Anissa Antoine. The International Organization of La Francophonie in partnership with Alias Voices has launched the official activities for Francophonie Day 2019. International Francophonie Day is an annual celebration of the French language and the Francophone culture observed on March 20th within the International Organization of La Francophonie's 77 member states. Marcia Safaria is the national correspondent for the Francophonie. Saint Lucia would be joining the rest of the Francophonie community in the observance of Francophonie Month. We celebrate Francophonie Month because we have a number of things in common as a community and one of the things that we share is this linguistic heritage based on the French. It's in addition to celebrating our membership to the Francophonie, the Month is about sharing and promoting OEFs of Francophonie's ideals and its values and some of those include promoting peace, promoting cultural diversity, promoting the French language, promoting education and training, higher education, research and development of cooperation and sustainable development. Alias Voices has organized a series of linguistic and cultural events including a circus by the French Caribbean Department, a French breakfast and a French play. Monique August is the cultural supervisor for Alias Voices. We will be putting on Le Petit Prus, an adoption of a very well-known French children's book after the Bible. It is one of the most translated books in the world and it follows a story of a narrator who is trapped in the desert and he meets a little prince from another planet who tells him about his journey and his findings and his story of how he gets back to his rose. It will be put on as a musical, original song written by French students and will be acted out by French students in St. Lucia as well as French teachers. Alias Voices invites the members of the public to the production which will be showcased on March 20th, 2019 at the St. Joseph's Convent at 7 p.m. From the Government Information Service, I am Anisia Antoine reporting. And this is the NCN Nightly coming up the latest happenings in youth and sports with Ryan O'Brien. We consume and we don't spare a thought for the damage that they'll do. No. Think about the children. Think about the children. How will we save it? Chemicals and GMOs are not the solution. Use organic enjoyment. Excessive agrochemical use, additives and genetically modified foods are harmful to health and the environment. Join the Good Food Revolution. Grow, buy and consume organic. A message from Ryan St. Lucia and the Ministry of Sustainable Development with funding from the GEF Small Grants Program, UNDP. The Good Food Revolution. Welcome back. We join Ryan O'Brien for the latest happenings in youth development and sports. Hello everyone and welcome once again to your segment on the NCN Nightly news on happenings at the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. I'm Ryan O'Brien. First off, some scores volleyball results from Friday. Miku Secondary, one of the John Adler Memorial two games to love, 25-13, 25-20. Leon has comprehensive, with two love winners over Sofra Comprehensive Secondary School, 25-14, 25-20, while Sumire's College overcame Cardin Secondary two games to one, 25-16, 18-25, 15-12. Two more matches scheduled in the preliminary stage of the Mass United School's cricket competition on Wednesday, March 13th. Leon has comprehensive with Playcastry's Comprehensive at the Gosele Plainfield and John Adler Memorial will come up against Clinton Mason Memorial at Larissus. Quarter-final matches scheduled for Friday, March 15th. Sofra Comprehensive will face Miku Secondary at the Philip-Marsley Ground. Entrepreneur Secondary will tackle Sofra Comprehensive Secondary at Ballata. The Otterloo West Community College takes on Beanfield, at the Mendoville Park and St. Mary's College plays Leon has comprehensive at Gosele. The in-depth study on adolescents in St. Lucia is one way to ensure programs targeting young people in St. Lucia's society are more likely to achieve desired goals. That's the view of Mary Wilfred, Director of Youth within the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports. And so it engages young people to give back to national development, prepares them for employment, give them the necessary skills that they need, keep them occupied, and we would also see that they too can earn a little bit from it as they're prepared to enter the kind of formal world of work if we want to see that. Before we go, here's the thing you know that Northern and Southern qualifiers will soon be staged as the Ministry gets set for its annual big events in the secondary schools, track and field championships. More on that during the week. From the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports, I'm Ryan O'Brien saying goodbye. Thanks Ryan. Reports circulating from international media that an HIV patient is currently in sustained remission from the virus has led experts to believe that the AIDS cause and condition could one day be curable, and that a senior medical officer in the infectious disease unit says in the absence of more research, HIV patients should continue their treatment to keep their viral loads at bay. It's been nearly 10 years since the first confirmed case of an HIV-infected person being rid of the deadly disease, a man known as the Berlin patient underwent treatment for leukemia by receiving stem cell transplants from donors carrying a genetic mutation that prevents expression from being known as the CCR-5. Reports from international media last week reported its second case where the same thing happened this time in the London patient. The revelation has brought hope to experts that HIV can one day be cured, but the acting senior medical officer in the infectious disease unit says not so fast. Patients should continue to take the HIV medication as more research needs to be done on the recent findings. The London patient was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 and had been on antiretroviral therapy since 2012. Following his stem cell transplants, the patient continued HIV treatment for 16 months but wanted to know if his HIV was in remission so he stopped treatment. 18 months later, his viral load is still undetectable. Normally, persons who are infected with HIV and are on HIV treatment, when they stop their treatment if their viral load had been undetectable, you'll find over the period of months the viral load would start to increase again. And that's the amount of virus. When I say viral load, we're talking about the amount of virus in the patient's body. So while we're not saying that the patient is cured, right now his HIV viral load is undetectable in the absence of medication. Dr. Gajada notes that while this new information allows for more research to determine whether a cure can be found for HIV, that cure is not currently on the horizon but rather treatment that can allow for viral loads in patients to become undetectable. We have antiretroviral therapy and we have antiretroviral therapy that is available in St. Lucia. And in order for persons to get their viral load to be undetectable, they need to take their medication on a daily basis. That requires commitment and I'm not saying that it's something that's easy but there are persons in St. Lucia living with HIV who have undetectable viral loads. It is important to know if you are infected with HIV and I want you to think about HIV like diabetes and hypertension. When someone has diabetes in order to control their sugar, they need to take their medication be it tablets or insulin or both on a daily basis. If someone has high blood pressure in order to keep their blood pressure on normal levels, they need to take their medication on a daily basis. Dr. Gajada gave the 2017 statistics for persons living with HIV in St. Lucia. We had 44 persons diagnosed with HIV. Those were new diagnoses. 29 of those persons were male, 15 of them were female. So we have a ratio of about 2 to 1. In terms of transmission of HIV, 20 of those cases were unknown. Five of those were transmission. Men having sex with men and the rest were heterosexual transmission. From 2007, we haven't had any transmission from mother to child. The acting senior medical officer encourages persons to know their status and get tested for HIV. And stay with the NTN Nightly. Up next, Primus Hutchinson is here with the NTN Nouvelle Arquéon. There are signs everywhere. Pay attention whether you're male or female. Visit your health center to get screened. It's a preliminary test to determine if you are exposed to the HIV virus and STI or tuberculosis. Some people who are HIV positive also have tuberculosis. But there's hope. Tuberculosis can be cured. And yes, you can live a full life with HIV. Talk to your doctor. Be responsible. Help stop the spread of TB, HIV. Help everyone to get tested. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. We love you very much. with some scattered showers. The tide for castries was low at 12.48 p.m. and will be high at 7.20 p.m. The tide for V4B was low at 2.15 p.m. and will be high at 8.27 p.m. The seas moderate with waves four to six feet or 1.2 to 1.8 meters. The sun will rise Tuesday at 6.13 a.m. And that brings us to the end of the NTN Nightly. Join us next time at 7 p.m. with a repeat at 7 a.m. You can also catch up with us anytime on the St. Lucia Government Facebook page or YouTube channel. I'm Nisha Charles.